The Voice for the St. Louis Construction Industry

Kwame Building Group Receives ENR Midwest Best Project Of The Year Award For Lambert ‘Airport Experience’ Renovation

The Lambert-St. Louis International Airport “Airport Experience” Renovation Program has won the “ENR Midwest Best Project of the Year Award: Airports/Transit.” Joshua Randall, president of St. Louis-based project management firm Kwame Building Group, Inc., and Jerry Beckmann, Airport Deputy Director, Planning & Development of Lambert Airport, accepted the award at a ceremony in Chicago on November 19. The project also was profiled in the November 16 edition of ENR Midwest.

“The jurors reviewed scores of entries for the Midwest’s Best Projects competition, putting the winning projects in very rare company indeed,” said John Gregerson, regional editor for ENR Midwest.

Kwame Building Group (KWAME) provided program management for the $62 million multi-phased Airport Experience Program, the largest renovation in Lambert’s history. KWAME oversaw and coordinated five intricate and overlapping design packages and 10 construction packages to upgrade the airport’s main terminal, concourses and baggage-claim areas.

In 2011, during the most intensive phase of the renovation, an F4 tornado hit Lambert Airport, destroying its historic arched windows, ripping open a concourse roof, and dismantling previously completed work. Despite the complications of the ensuing $30 million tornado recovery program – which KWAME also managed – and a new $30 million TSA baggage system, the Airport Experience Program was completed months early and within budget while achieving Lambert’s aggressive goals to maximize diversity and opportunities for minority- and women-owned businesses.

The ENR Best Projects Awards celebrate and honor the building teams that created the best construction projects of 2015 nationwide. Winners were selected by juries of prominent regional industry professionals who evaluate projects based on challenges and teamwork, safety, innovation, contribution to the industry and community, construction quality and craftsmanship; and design functionality and aesthetics.

All winning projects will compete against winners from other U.S. regions in ENR’s National Best of the Best Projects 2016 Competition.

Kwame Building Group, Inc. (KWAME) is one of the nation’s top 15 pure construction management firms, dedicating 100 percent of its resources to project management services. An employee-owned company, KWAME provides estimating, scheduling, project planning, value engineering and other project management services as an independent advocate for owners and developers. KWAME has been named a “Top 100 Construction Management-for-Fee Firm” multiple times by Engineering News Record (ENR), the construction industry’s leading news and analysis publication, and received an ENR Midwest 2015 Best Project of the Year Award. St. Louis RCGA has named KWAME one of the “Top 50 Companies in the St. Louis Region.”

KWAME’s public and private sector projects include educational facilities, major airports nationwide, light-rail systems, hospitals, wastewater treatment facilities and government facilities. KWAME is headquartered in St. Louis